rlong at the idea of killing a woman.

Yet the leader, studiously maintaining his Ku-Klux masquerade, parleyed
with his underlings and consulted a heavy nickel-cased watch. His
gesture showed a petulant impatience. The men in the silent circle
stirred uneasily and from time to time low growls broke from their
muffled lips. Obviously they were awaiting some development which
though overdue had not materialized.

The half hour became an hour, then doubled itself to a full two--in
oppressive silence.

"What be ye awaitin' fer?" Alexander demanded in a taunting voice,
though inwardly she felt that the peril was pregnant and immediate.
The only satisfaction she could deny them now was that of any confessed
fear.

This time the speaker snarled his answer back at her angrily, without
any consistent attempt at holding the ritualistic impressiveness of
manner.

"Mebby we're waitin' fer midnight--twell ther black cat comes."

Alexander could not guess that all these malefactors were on
tenterhooks of misgiving because the arrangement entered into as a
concession to the vanity of Jase Mallows had failed; the fictitious
rescue which was to re-establish him in the eyes of the girl and give
to them the chance to practice highway robbery, still stopping short of
murder. The whole scheme had been cut to that pattern and it was now
too late to evolve a new strategy. The trial was to have seemed
genuine. It was to have been followed by a fictitious battle in which
the alleged regulators were to have been put to flight by the
victorious entry of Jase himself with his underlings. The girl,
snatched from the jaws of death by his valor would henceforth rest
under such obligations as could be recompensed only by her favor--but
in the melee, her money would disappear.

Jase had not come--and the captive whom he was to take off their hands
must either be done to death or liberated with a wagging tongue.

Eventually the masked head-highwayman led two of his men aside. He
recognized that having compacted with Jase they could not ignore him.
In a whisper he ventured the suggestion, "Mebby Jase hes done come ter
grief. Mebby we'd better kill ther gal atter all an' git away. But if
we does we've got ter git Jase afore he has time ter blab an' hang us
all."

Halloway spending a long and dreary day bound to his chair in the
baggage-room at Viper had succeeded in wriggling his lips free of the
bandage. As yet that was only an a